All Writers are Liars (Dr Jacobs said so)
When an artist plans a great work of art he or she must use the tools familiar and honed by them. The painter has their color, paint types and the size of canvas at their disposal. The movie director has visual aids, actors and soundtracks to convey their interpretation of the story. The writer has it the hardest. He has only his words to get the point across. He has only his words to create in the mind’s eye what he envisions. He has words, with their hidden meanings and contextual meanings. Even their contemporary meanings will help give voice and hopefully lasting life to his words. The writer has another advantage over the other artists: Not only does he have the words that he gives the readers, he has all of the words that he chooses to not give to the reader. So much more work is required of the author’s readers, his viewing audience, when more words are left out than those that are put in. Some writers choose to embark on this path, but they do not do so flippantly; it is done with purpose. The end result of the story is not come upon just because. Keeping information back helps to drive the reader forward; it keeps the pages turning with the anticipation of what is to come. It plays on the human desire to know. Inside, good writers know that readers are voyeurs, greedy to feast on the lives of others.
How does a particular author go about capturing the reader tastefully? How does he properly tantalize the reader to keep him drawn in, thirsting for more? Does he make his internal voice within the novel, his narrator, a thief; a withholder of information? Possibly, yes. However, a more honest withholder of information is a narrator that does not have all of the information to wilfully keep or give. Thomas Uzzell says that “facts can be kept from the reader, therefore, only by a distortion of the truth about the angle character” (425 Ussell). Keeping information from the readers, teasing them, makes for a fulfilling and satisfying reading experience.
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald has for its narrator such a keeper of knowledge. Fitzgerald presents his readers with a unique point of view. The title of his novel The Great Gatsby denotes that the internal pages will be about a character named Gatsby, and he is quite a character indeed. Upon first glance the reader might assume that this Gatsby fellow will be writing about himself: An autobiographical singing of his own praise, so to speak. A close second assumption would present a third person narrator: The omniscient and all knowing voice that has the ability to see into all scened and look into the hearts of all characters. The problem with the omniscient narrator is that it is too easy. If Fitzgerald were looking to spoon-feed his readers, this would be the option he would have chosen.
At the time Fitzgerald writes The Great Gatsby, he has known that he wants to be a professional writer. He has developed his art and his technique. He has the ability to create a novel that is challenging for his readers as well as interesting. He has previous experience with the omniscient narrator. Perhaps it is time to try something new. So we have the introduction of Nick Carraway. E.M. Forester writes about the creation of the characters. “They do not come thus coldly into his mind, they may be created in delirious excitement; still, their nature is conditioned by what he guesses about other people, and about himself, and is further modified by the other aspects of his work” (Forster 44). Nick is the perfect solution to the challenge of The Great Gatsby’s perfect narrator. He, in addition to being a character, is the voice of The Great Gatsby. He is the persona that Fitzgerald creates to weave his intrinsic. The entire novel, save for excerpts of storytelling, is not only from Nick’s point of view, but is presented to be his own written representation of the events. “The point of view in a given novel controls the reader’s impression of everything” (Scholes 275). This meta-narrative, the nested story within a story, isn’t even something that Nick records daily. He admits freely that he returns to write events down after time has passed and he has had time to think about and understand what has happened. Fitzgerald takes his unreliable narrator one step further. He directly links Nick and his growing understanding of Gatsby. Nick’s role and existence of Jay Gatsby’s persona form a symbiotic relationship; making the necessity of the second essential to the life of the first.
The evolving narrator, Nick Carraway, is sitting down two years later to write about his summer adventure in New York. He does not attempt to capture the reader with gimmicky language or tricks of the trade. He is just being simply honest. When Nick first introduces himself, he does so with a air of snobbery. A quote from his father and a remark about being born with every advantage lets his readers know that this man does not present himself as a mere, humble scribe. He is relatively raciest and a bit of an anti-semantic. Meyer Wolfshiem is described as having “tiny eyes in the half darkness” (Fitzgerald 74), and Gatsby’s world is peopled with almost entirely Caucasians. He has not yet met Gatsby, but like Ulysses, Jay’s reputation is grand and full of scandal. Nick has no qualms at repeating the here-say he intercepts about his neighbor. Nick’s initial version of the whole truth and nothing but the truth is greatly limited by the fact that none of the actual truth is available to him, and therefore, to us. Nick further entrenches himself in his unreliability as he begins to drink more frequently throughout the novel. This aspect of his livening life isn’t something he even makes attempts to hide. Nick says early on, “I have been drunk just twice in my life and the second time was that afternoon, so everything that happened has a dim hazy cast to it (Fitzgerald 33). Now we have a naive and a drunk narrator. An additional problem with Nick is what he is willing to write down. He is quick to transcribe all of the juicy details he picks up on. He doesn’t give too much of his own opinion. His perception of the truth is all we have. “We remain walled up in the narrator’s consciousness, never permitted to consult with the author or to depart even momentarily to get an outsider’s look at the situation” (Szanto 8). Nick is all we have, and as readers we must take what we can get.
While Nick is highly uninformed and quick to judge, one thing he is not is careless. As a narrator he is not completely ineffectual. Jordan says to him “I thought you were an honest and straightforward person” (Fitzgerald 186). All narrators must have their good points, or else they would fail miserably at their jobs, or provide so much humor as to reduce a dramatic tale to stupidity. Nick’s saving grace is his keen eye and his ability to remember everything that he sees for later (or else fabricate it all so well that we, the reader believe the story he weaves). When Nick attends Tom’s meeting with Mrs Wilson, though he freely admits his drunken state, he remembers most of the events with crystal clarity. The stacked paintings, the out of focus enlargement of the photograph and the dried smudge of shaving cream on the downstairs neighbors cheek. All of these things Nick sets down with a realist’s touch. It suggests that Nick is in the wrong chosen field of work. What use does a bondsman have for eloquent words? This chapter is very early on, before Jay has had any words to speak. Fitzgerald does this as a trial of his chosen voice. This is his opportunity to convince the reader that Nick is indeed worth listening to. True, he is flawed as a man, but that completes his make up as a perfectly written character: One that we can enjoy listening to, but acknowledge that his story can not be taken at face value. The reader must listen, and listen closely. But unlike Nick, we must not believe everything we hear until the story has completely unfolded and the curtain has drawn. To put it bluntly, Nick Carraway is a liar. He is such, not because he does so willfully or spitefully, but because he is never given the entirety of the events he is attempting to journalize. He is what students of literature would deem an ‘unreliable narrator’. This term is softened and made gentle for him. Truthfully, he is littler more than a liar and spreader of gossip. He is not such out of malice, simply mere ignorance. Thomas E. Boyle also looks closely at Nick’s role of unreliable narrator. He speaks of “the ‘distance’ between the narrator’s perception and the reader’s perception”. He quotes Wayne Booth as saying that the unreliable narrator will “make stronger demands on the reader’s powers of inference than reliable narrators” (Boyle 21).
Why is it essential that Nick be an unreliable narrator? It goes much deeper than just pushing the plot. Nick is a tool. Not just Fitzgerald’s literary tool, he is the victim of his fellow characters as well. He is brought in as an outsider. He has neither the money nor the intimate knowledge of the historical gossip to make appropriate assumptions of how it is really going down. He states that he will not be “rumored into marriage” (Fitzgerald 24) but he will allow the rumors of Gatsby’s past to shape an initial view of the hero. As Nick is drawn deeper into the drama, he becomes Gatsby’s sole representation. Through Nick, Gatsby is able to fulfil his life’s goal: Obtaining Daisy. If Nick had more common sense, the tragedy would have unfolded differently. It is Nick’s unreliability as a man that Gatsby needs.Nick’s perception of Jay Gatsby is unique, just as his appearance in the novel is essential. He is not just an observer, he is a participant. He is, by birth and acquaintance, the link to Daisy and Tom that Gatsby needs. Nick unintentionally moves into a rented cottage next door to Gatsby’s gaudy mansion, making him the perfect go-between for the reunited lovers’ liaison. As Nick’s adventure continues on, the reader must accept his authority. He is the eye-witness of the events of that summer, and seemingly the only one that has all of the pieces (Scholes 251). He is, for all intensive purposes, the creator.
As the reader journeys on from page to page, he gets to know Jay Gatsby a little better. After sifting through the roomers, the gossip and the blatant lies, the shy and insecure man is reached. We come to meet a man so embarrassed by his humble upbringings that he tells his own father that he “et like a pig,” and once given the opportunity, casts his born identity - his name - aside like yesterday’s news.
Why does Fitzgerald choose this careful and deliberate method of delivery? He does this because it is truly the most logical course of action. Who exactly is Jay Gatsby? He is the gut of the American Dream. He is Ben Franklin. He is one of the last self-made men of our history. He wills into being the man that we, the readers, know as Jay Gatsby when he sheds Jimmy Gatz in name. He educates himself ruthlessly. He joins the military in an attempt to find himself, and when all else fails and his options have vanished like his love, Daisy, he embraces illegal activities to procure and grow his fortune.
To thine own self be true and know thyself. Are they relevant to Gatsby? They are more that relevant, they are Jay greatest shortcomings. Before Jay Gatsby is born, before Jimmy puts on Jay’s mask, he has motivation, but no real vision. Jimmy knows that there is something more out there, something more to get out of life. He even has ideas as to how to get it. Elocution, poise, diction, he scheduled himself to practices them for hours a day to reach his goal. But what was the goal? What was it that Jimmy Gatz wanted to get out of life? “Anything but here,” would be your most likely answer. There isn’t much purpose in that. Finally, the opportunity of a lifetime: Today is the first day of the rest of your life: The yacht. Out on a boat in the water, Gatz is put in a situation where a wealthy, influential man doesn’t know who the young boy is. Jimmy can become anyone he can imagine and all he has to do is convince somebody else. Jay Gatsby is born with two small words, though he still is without purpose, and he lacks soul.
Money can’t buy happiness; love is the only true thing that can make the soul whole. Gatsby finds a love and suddenly he finds a meaning to life. He quickly realizes that he is too poor to marry this beautiful girl that is painfully comfortable in her wealth. She will leave him empty and feeling dejected for the rest of his life.
The last five and a half years of Gatsby’s life are spent amassing what he feels Daisy would want: Obscene wealth. He is learning the language of love by memorizing the dictionary, but not discovering how all of the words fit together: His poetry has no rhyme, his prose has no meaning. He just doesn’t know. Our hero is left with the same thing he started with: Nothing. There is no self to know truly.
Jay Gatsby grows his fortune, and simultaneously his reputation, by any means necessary. He begins with a deal with Meyer Wolfshiem. Jay is an attractive and congenial looking fellow, and the pair begin with selling grain alcohol out of drug stores. Illegal bond trading (Fitzgerald 174) is finally confirmed when Nick intercepts a phone call after Jay’s death. Jay seems to be under the impression that it doesn’t matter how he amasses his fortune. As long as he has the money, and throws the extravagant parties, people will enjoy the idea of Jay Gatsby. His money is as soulless as he is. Kent Cartwright writes an essay on the unreliability of Nick. He comments that “As critics, we seem to cherish our disillusionment (Cartwright 218). The disillusionment of life is indeed what Gatsby has an intimate relationship with.
Unfortunately, on the inside, Gatsby has not escaped who he was born to be. Despite his opulent home and grand parties, Gatsby, like his uncut books, is not much more than a facade, a farce. His greatness is just a sham. Gatsby is unable to embrace the extreme wealth and popularity because they are not who he is. He does not know who he is. Nick sums it up eloquently in his final pages. “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed to close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him,” (Fitzgerald 189): Gatsby is a mystery, especially to himself. Can a man that does not know himself write his autobiography? To put it bluntly; no, he can not.
Jay and Nick, Nick and Jay, the two are irrevocably linked. Nick needs Jay to tell the story of Gatsby and Jay needs Nick to fulfill his heroic journey, however tragic that it is. Nick, as the narrator cannot know the complete story of Gatsby until Jay’s death. Otherwise, more might happen that could be written about.
The perspective that Fitzgerald gives to his readers through the use of Nick is an appropriate and effective one. Janet Holmgren McKay, in her book Narration and discourse in American realistic fiction talks about the dissonance between the narrating voice and “the consciousness he narrates” (McKay 6). Nick often presents the air of a man detached from his reality and the tragic events he writes about. This distance creates the believability of the story of Gatsby. He writes about the passion filled affairs as if he were describing the weather. In the end of the novel, Nick simply puts down his creative pen and goes home. It is as anti-climatic as Jay’s death. Cartwright believes that Nick fails as a narrator, “the failure of Nick’s narration is a failure of his will to believe (Cartwright 232). But he does not fail, far from it. Nick is able to succeed where any other type of narrator would surly fail. Nick’s lack of creativity and imagination are exactly what Gatsby needs to have his life portrayed accurately. If Nick were any more interesting, his portrayal of The Great Gatsby would come across as flamboyant and exaggerated. The success of Jay’s last summer corresponds inversely to Nick’s final unaccentuated telling of Gatsby’s story.
Works Cited
Boyle, Thomas. “Unreliable Narration in “The Great Gatsby””. RMMLA.
23.1 (1969) SU Web Archive.
Cartwright, Kent. “Nick Carraway as an Unreliable Narrator”. Papers on
Language and Literature 20, no. 2 (spring 1984): 218-32.
Fitzgerald, F[rancis] Scott. The Great Gatsby. Scribner. New York, 1995.
Print
Forster, E[dward]. M[organ]. Aspects of the Novel. Harcourt Brace and
World. New York, 1954. Print
McKay, Janet Holmgren. Narration and discourse in American realistic
fiction. University of PA Press. Philadelphia, 1982
Scholes, Robert. The Nature of Narrative. Oxford University Press. London,
2006. Print
Szanto, George. Narrative Consciousness. University of Texas Press.
Austin, 1940. Print.
Uzzell, Thomas. Narrative Technique. Harcourt, Brace and Company. New
York, 1934. Print
